ChatGPT: Should Language Teachers Be Worried? - Steve Kaufmann

There are various ways ChatGPT can assist in language learning: Duolingo seems to have enlisted ChatGPT mostly for error correction and role playing. These are not areas of interest to me. However, these activities could help lessen the workload of teachers.

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I believe ChatGPT and other bots will have a major role on learning languages as soon as they will become better and better and will talk and listen to.

Teachers will be always important but chatGPT will cut away mediocre teachers.

Plus, learning languages will be more accessible on people that don’t have much money to spend on lessons increasing their will to learn more languages.

ChatGPT will get better to teach languages, to correct mistakes giving context, to learn to remember what it was writing and to learn to keep the conversation going.

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As Kaufmann and Krashen have noted, conventional language teaching remains committed to the old teacher-centric education model in spite of its dire statistical results and the research victories for Comprehensible Input.

I recently returned to university as a senior and it is clear to me that actually educating students is a low priority compared to maintaining the control of teachers and administrators.

I see no reason to suppose ChatGPT will be a threat to this system anymore than Comprehensible Input has been.

However, there is a large crisis coming for conventional education as demographics, costs, and lost credibility blow a big hole in the university system, while educational resources based on the internet and new AI tech provide cheaper, more effective alternatives.

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Absolutely! I think we are all trying to be polite and conservative but there will be a huge change in teaching habits if they allow to these bots to grow without much “politic limitation”. And people with less money will have a lot more opportunities to grow if they want to and if they know how to use these tools.

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